ļ»æHi, Iām Sari Azout and this is the startupy newsletter, where I share an eclectic assortment of links, thoughts, and ideas curated in and around the startupy universe. Join me down the rabbit hole.
Here are this week's things worth sharing:
1
THE TRUEST THING ABOUT MAKING ART
The truest thing Iāve ever read about making artāor pursuing any type of ambitious creative workā by Maggi Hambling:
It is not difficult to make a work of art, the difficulty lies in being in the right state to do it.
Or, in the words of Miles Davis:
Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself.
2
ON OUR CHANGING RELATIONSHIP TO WORK
This line from Kevin Kellyās new book resonated:
Donāt create things to make money. Make money so you can create things. The reward for good work is more work.
As someone who loves being consumed by the process of making something, I feel this so much.
But seen from a historical perspective, the idea of trading in leisure for more work is strange. Friend of startupy Simon Stolzoff explains this in his new book The Good Enough Job (which I devoured this week):
For much of human history, the more wealth an individual accumulated, the less time they spent working. But in the past 50 years, a strange trend has occurred: despite gains in wealth and productivity, many college-educated Americansāand especially college-educated menāhave worked more than ever. Instead of trading wealth for leisure, American professionals began to trade leisure for more work.
Simon makes the argument that in the U.S., capitalism is not just an economic system, itās also a social philosophy that says a person is as valuable as their output. His conclusion is not that we shouldnāt be working hard, itās that we should diversify our sources of identity and meaning.
Fall down the relationship with work rabbit hole with me here.
3
THIS CHARLES BOKOWSKI POEM IS š„
I feels like itās meant to be read aloud by someone with a raspy voice smoking a tobacco in the streets of Italy.
Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art
Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art
Not many have style
Not many can keep style
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
GarcĆa Lorca.
I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.
4
WHEN SOMEONE UNDERESTIMATES YOU, REMEMBER THIS
5
ALIGNING VALUE CREATION AND VALUE CAPTURE
Hereās a crazy stat comparing the gaming vs. music industry growth:
2000:
Gaming ā ~$40B
Music ā ~$40B
2019:
Gaming ā > ~$100B
Music ā < ~$20B
Music has just as much engagement as video games, so thereās basically no reason there should be a 5x difference in market size ā except for the business model.Ā
The explanation? When the Internet happened, music tried to monetize a product (songs, gated access) whereas games monetized the experience (in-app purchases, virtual. goods, etc..).
The takeaway: value creation is not the same as value capture.
6
SUCCESS IS A LAGGING INDICATOR
I love this framing: all success is a lagging indicator, inspired by Ryan Holiday:
āWhen a dayās writing goes well, itās a lagging indicator of hours and hours spent researching and thinkingā¦ Hitting a personal record on the bench press is a lagging indicator of a lot of discipline and hard work. Receiving a promotion is a lagging indicator of a lot of quality work. Delivering a keynote with confidence is a lagging indicator of a lot of preparation.
7
WHOāS ALLOWED TO WANT KIDS
This essay by Haley Nahman on the complicated feelings around wanting children, the appeal of the āeffortless pregnancyā, and the people on Internet forums is so honest, vulnerable, and well written. I want to read more stuff like this on the Internet! Two quotes I highlighted:
Itās not particularly popular (or easy) to frame parenthood as aspirational when you hold the concerns of the left. At least not in my world. Sure, you can have kids as a leftist, but the primary conversations surrounding parenthood that I participated in concerned its problems: the right to abortion, the problem of climate change, the dubious ethics of adoption, the terrifying scourge of school shootings, the destructive influence of the nuclear family, the damage motherhood does to womenās careers and mental health, the alarming lack of support for parents in the West, the movement to destigmatize childlessness and celebrate non-traditional life paths, etc. All important and valid conversations. None exactly ushering leftists enthusiastically towards parenthood.
Maybe that was part of the problem for me: all that trying in the trying forums. The desperation radiated off their questions (āMy joints hurt, could that be a sign?ā). So far, in my life, effortlessness held far greater appealāin dressing, in poise, in making a baby. To appear effortless meant to never outwardly cop to a condition of lack. And yet thatās exactly what I felt last fall: weird, isolated, lacking. A little bit like a loser. The forums forced me to acknowledge something I'd been avoidingādesire itself. I wanted to want in a remote sort of way, and here these women were, vulnerable and unashamed of their desire, seeking refuge and support for their sake and for mine. Secretly I loved them for that.
8
YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH
I never thought I would enjoy a talk delivered to a bunch of researchers and computer scientists in 1986. But whoa, this lecture by Richard Hamming called You And Your Research about doing great work is something I plan to come back to for years to come.
Read the full thing here, but my top quotes are below:
Dispose of this matter of luck as being the sole criterion whether you do great work or notā¦ Newton said, ``If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results.''
One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.
Knowledge and productivity are like compound interestā¦The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.Ā
Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very wellā¦ If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started.Ā
I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.Ā
You should do your job in such a fashion that others can build on top of it, so they will indeed say, ``Yes, I've stood on so and so's shoulders and I saw further.'' The essence of science is cumulative.
9
MADE ME LAUGH
This is funny, but true. People usually donāt know what they want until someone shows it to them, or until they encounter it in the world for the very first time.
10
THIS 1993 STEVE JOBS SPEECH WAS SO AHEAD OF ITS TIME
Itās wild to read this Steve Jobs excerpt today, when character.ai, an app where anyone can create and talk to a character, fictional, real, dead, or alive, is the #2 app on the iOS store, ahead of TikTok.
Curator spotlight
PRADO
Entrepreneur, writer, builder.
pradologue.com
pradologue.substack.com
DOWN THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION šš³ļø
Why is the Future of Education interesting?
The world is changing rapidly. As Yuval Noah Harari said, ""Nobody knows what the job market will look like in 40 years, so nobody knows what to teach children today."
We are at a point where you don't educate children to get them ready for the jobs but for their excellence. To help them reach their full potential. To help them pursue what they want to pursue.
New technologies like Blockchain & AI will bring more innovation in the education space.
Teachers will be new coaches, content creators will be new teachers. Grades will fade away, and learning through experience will become the norm. Problem-solving and critical thinking will be integral, and games will be encouraged.
The future of education will be one of the most fulfilling and exciting topics today.
Things worth reading and watching on the topic
The 13th chapter in the book "Lessons of History" by Will and Ariel Durant.
Range by David Epstein
Why? I believe the future has more opportunities for the generalists. The one who knows how to use AI to automate and accomplish tasks will be given more preferences.
Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
We need more humans whose curiosity and actions are as diverse as Da Vincis.
Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon, because heās just an incredible teacher of life.
Insights on the topic
Experiential Education will become the new classroom.
The Edu-Travel industry will make a huge comeback.
More content will be released by creators who can both educate and entertain. Edutainers will be the new teachers.
Learn-to-Earn and Bounty platforms will be widely used. As self-education becomes more popular, these platforms become their testing grounds.
We went from being travelers to settlers and now we can finally be nomadic again. International schools will rise in popularity, and children will be able to move to a different school in a different country without affecting their education.
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The Kevin Kelly quote brings to mind The Fountainhead's āI do not build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.ā